The First One

I probably should have started earlier, but I didn't know what would become of this. About a year ago, I started studying Chinese intensely again. I say "again" because I actually started in Saturday school, followed by Chinese school after regular school, then more Chinese when I entered high school. When I say Chinese, I do mean Mandarin. For a short while I was learning Cantonese, but not as long as Mandarin.

After high school I gave up. I had a strong foundation on the pinyin system and I could read and write simple Mandarin, but I couldn't speak or understand very much. My major in college didn't require a foreign language, so I decided to drop it all together and focus mainly on my engineering courses. At the time, I really saw Mandarin more as a burden than a gift. I already spoke my own Chinese dialect with my parents and I lived in a country that spoke English, so what reason do I have to speak Mandarin? I never knew how short-sighted I was at the time.

When I left the country for the first time in the summer of 2005, it happened to be to Shanghai. I didn't know what to expect...in honesty, I just hoped that I could get around in English. Man I was wrong. I got ripped off right when I stepped out of the airport. I didn't see any real taxis at that particular moment, so a man came up to me and said, "Taxi?" I just went ahead, only to realize later I was not sitting in a Taxi and I was overcharged. My instincts didn't kick in, even though the signs were obvious I was making a bad decision. I couldn't speak Mandarin and I was too scared to do anything. I got lucky though...they did take me to my destination, but I had paid almost twice the amount a regular taxi would have charged me. I was so embarrassed...I couldn't speak about it with anyone.

I spent most of the time, all 5 weeks, relying on other Mandarin speaking students to help me get around. I still could not hold a conversation in Mandarin, but my pronunciation skills improved dramatically. But looking back, I think that if I already spoke Mandarin before visiting Shanghai, I may not have ever realized how important it was to learn another language outside of my comfort zone.